


A Rose for Sophia

by bendingwind



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 09:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingwind/pseuds/bendingwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas in a lost world. Set between seasons 2 and 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Rose for Sophia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katoelizabeth (katobeth)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katobeth/gifts).



Nobody realizes its Christmas, not at first. They haven’t bothered with calendars for months. Extra weight, extra baggage, something that won’t help anyone anyway.

Daryl finds the atomic clock, running on what must be some damn good batteries, in the kitchen of a family still rotting in their driveway. It shows the time, plenty left till dark, and the date: December Twenty-Fifth. There’s even a cute little Christmas tree displayed by the date.

It seems wrong, somehow; the houses are decorated only in a dusting of the kind of dirty grey snow that makes Glenn talk about things like the atmosphere and the climate. Daryl couldn’t give two fucks about either of those things. It’s just as hard to track meat in grey snow as it is in white. There aren’t any Christmas lights, or any of those stupid blow-up Christmas decorations Daryl always hated, or even any Christmas trees. Hardly Christmas at all.

He’s not sure why he slips upstairs. The parents’ bedroom is about as big as Daryl’s old dad’s apartment was. It’s still messy, the kind of mess that builds up from day-to-day life and not the kind that results from panic.

Dirty laundry sits in a fancy basket and sparkly perfume bottles litter a pretty table with a mirror. Daryl considers them for a moment, and shakes his head. Carol wouldn’t care for scent, especially not if it might attract some fucking walker to her or something.

He could take one of the clean shirts from the closet, because he knows Carol likes pretty things, but they look too big and maybe she wouldn’t like that or something. 

He reaches over and opens a nice box sitting on the table with the mirror and the perfume, just as Rick calls from the front door, letting him know that they’re moving out in fifteen. Daryl calls out his acknowledgement, and then he pockets a string of pearls from the top of the box. He grabs one of those pretty, clean shirts for Lori, who’s getting pretty big, and a pair of shoes that look about Rick’s size. There’s a book on the bedside table, and he figure Glenn seems like the reading type, so he adds that to his bag. His gifts take up too much space, but it’s not like this house had much food that wasn’t already rotten anyway. They seemed like the kind of family that could probably afford to eat out a lot. He thinks of the case of ammo in his bike, and how unlikely he is to use it any time soon, and figures T-Dog will appreciate it.

In the hallway, he pauses, and then he slips back upstairs to pick out a second necklace for Beth. It’s not real nice stuff, but some of it’s pretty, and he picks out a sparkly pink stone on a silver chain and figures Beth’ll find some use for it or something.

Might make a nice garrotte.

He figures Maggie could do with some of those hair ties, ‘cause she keeps complaining about how often she has to cut her hair and maybe with them she could grow it out. For Hershel, he picks up one of the husband’s shirts, a nice clean white one because Hershel hasn’t had a clean shirt to wear in a good long while. Daryl figures he wouldn’t’a been so concerned with wearing them back on the farm if he didn’t like them. 

He’s just about to leave when something else at the bottom of the jewelry box catches his eye. It’s white and shiny, and it’s probably not meant to be a cherokee rose, but it looks an awful lot like one. He slips the pin into his pocket, next to the pearls, and heads out to meet with everyone else. The southern hoard isn’t too far behind them, today, and they gotta get around behind them before dark.

* * *

He finds Carol that evening, sitting near the edge of the light from the fire, sort of alone. He’s already handed out the rest of his presents, to smiles and quiet thank yous that were kinda embarrassing, but she looked like she needed some time after he reminded everyone that today was Christmas.

“Hey,” he says, sitting down next to her. She smiles at him, a small sad smile, and reaches out to grip his hand in her own.

“Gotcha somethin’,” he says, and he pulls the string of pearls out of his pocket, “Knew you like pretty things.”

She strokes it, and then chokes out a laugh that’s almost like she’s crying. 

He turns her hand over and drops it into her outstretched palm, and then closes her fingers around it. Her hand tenses under his, and he can see that her knuckles are turning a little white from how hard she’s gripping it, so he reaches back into his pocket and pulls out the little pin he found.

“It ain’t a cherokee rose, but it looks kinda like one. We’ll be going by... _there_... tomorrow. I thought we could, you know, visit her. Leave somethin’ pretty for her for Christmas?”

The sound that Carol chokes out now is definitely a sob, and she kinda launches herself at him. He catches her as she sobs into his neck.

“Hey now,” he says. He tries to rub her back, like they did in some of those movies he used to sneak into as a kid, and it sort of works.

After a while, she quiets down and pulls away a little. She reaches out to place a hand against his cheek, and Daryl holds as still as he can, ‘cause he’s used to touching meaning punches or slaps or shouts, but he knows that with Carol, it doesn’t. 

“Thank you, Daryl,” she says, and she leans forward to press a kiss against his forehead. “Let’s get some sleep now, yeah?”

He nods, and if he falls asleep with a smile on his face that night, it’s just ‘cause it’s Christmas.


End file.
